From A Past Edition Of The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Click here for the current edition Unbuttered Cheese Biscuits I talked about these a couple of days ago on the radio, and enough people asked for the recipe that I've written it down. I love the scratch-made biscuits my daughter and I have been making for years, but they involve the near occasion of sin: I can't resist loading those up with butter. I made these to be delicious without anything. I may be fooling myself into thinking there's any lowering of fat, but at least they're easy to eat and delicious. As long as they're very hot, you could even serve them at dinner. You can underbake these a little and freeze them. When you're ready to serve, microwave them for about thirty seconds and then pop them into a 400-degree oven (a toaster oven works fine) until browned completely. They will taste as if they'd just come out of the oven! 3 cups self-rising flour 5 Tbs. butter, softened 3 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese, softened 1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese 1 1/2 cups milk Preheat oven to 475 degrees. 1. Measure flour into a large bowl. Add the butter and cream cheese and stir with a wire whisk until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. It's okay for there to be a few small lumps. Then stir in the cheddar cheese to evenly distiribute. 2. Blend in the milk with light strokes of a kitchen fork. Continue lightly blending until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Add a little more milk if necessary to work all the dry flour at the bottom into a sticky, thoroughly damp dough. 3. Lightly grease a baking pan. Spoon out the dough with a soup spoon into balls about two inches in diameter. Dip your fingers in water and press the balls down only slightly (high biscuits come out better than flattened ones), and shape the dough up a bit if necessary. 4. Bake 14 minutes in the preheated 475-degree oven. They're ready when the little peaks on the biscuits begin to brown. Don't look for a dark overall brown; that indicates overbaking. Makes a dozen or so little biscuits. Click here for an index of recipes from past editions. © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com